


Escalade

by inkandchocolate



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:43:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley moves on to a new obsession. He has company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escalade

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES: Response to YGTS Gloveslap from Lindsay Ince. Further notes after the story.  
> DEDICATION: to Lindsay for the challenge. To Sam for the initial quelling of panic. To Olwen and ethrosdemon for the beta and the bolstering.

{Present}

There are jungles everywhere, Riley decides. Some are green and wet, and some are gray and dry, but all are dark.

And lethal to the unwary.

He lays flat on the rooftop across from the Hyperion Hotel, nightvision goggles trained on the front door. He ignores the ache in his back from the awkward position he's been in for the last three hours, ignores the thirst that makes his mouth sticky and his throat raspy. He's in full commando mode now, intent on the objective. Seek target. Gather information. It's a no contact mission.

For the moment.

Riley sighs, shifts on the hard asphalt that still retains some heat from the sun that set long ago. He tells himself there's a real reason for him to be here, basically stalking his ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. He tells himself it's a much safer habit than, oh, say...becoming the Sunnydale version of Denny's Grand Slam Vampire Breakfast.

And there it is again, that shaft of pain that goes through him when he thinks of *her* and the color of her hair, the way it was sunlight and moonlight perfectly combined. The way she had gone cold, turned to ice right in front of him. The way she never let him touch that sacred mark on her neck.

The way she'd let him leave.

= = = = =

{Two Months Earlier}

Belize is simple. Riley walks in like a numb robot, missing her and missing the friends he started to have. Graham tries to make it easy for him, offering what little relief he can. He talks the talk as if they never had any kind of disturbance in the flow of their military life and the friendship they had since basic training. He still treats Riley as if he is in command, deferring to him in every decision. Watching his back as Riley goes in and massacres the majority of the Sleervin demon nest all on his own. Crosses himself when he sees the cold, methodic way that Riley uses gun and knife and eventually his bare hands to rend flesh and bone, raving through them all until he's covered in the demons' blood and there's nothing living left behind him.

Eventually Graham has to say something. "Riley, man, you got to move on."

"Do you see anything resembling my ex here, Graham? Do you? I'd say I've moved the hell on."

"Your body might be here but your head ... it's all fucked up." Graham looks so earnest when he says it that Riley wants to laugh. And he wants to cry.

"Yeah that's me. I'm fucked up." He puts his head in his hands, rubs hard at his face until the prickly feeling behind his eyes goes away.

He leaves Belize the next day. Graham feels mingled regret and relief.

= = = = =

{Present}

Still no sign of Angel, and Riley is getting antsy. He saw him leave the bedroom, thanks to the glory of military paraphernalia. Riley can see and hear anything in the hotel that occurs near any window or glass door. It's only when Angel hits the hallways or the basement that Riley is blind.

He knows that Angel has fired the staff. He was there the night they all walked out and stood in numb shock. The girl was truly stunned, and Riley could almost feel the waves of hurt flowing off of her from way up here when she turned to the two men with her and asked "What just happened here?"

The tall thin one answered her, speaking calmly. "I believe we were fired."

"Canned," echoed the black man. Of them all, he seemed the least upset.

Back and forth they went, reminding Riley of the people he used to know back in Sunnydale, Xander and Willow and Giles and... There was the pain again, white hot and searing right through his breastbone.

A whisper-click of sound behind him makes Riley freeze in the act of drawing breath to sigh. And in the next moment he's got a tiny, tiny hand on the back of his neck, the size unbearably familiar but the feel of it too cold to be anything but vampire flesh.

Something else he is all too familiar with as well.

Breathy little voice in his ear then. "What's a big strong boy like you doing in a place like this?" And he can *hear* the smile, feral predator grin. Then she's sniffing at him, fingers gripping his neck as she lets her nose ruffle through his hair. He stays still as death, freezing every muscle in preparation for the attack he knows is coming. Curses the goggles that block his peripheral vision.

As if she reads his frantic thoughts, she slips the goggles off, gentle and slow, and somehow that makes him even more frightened. Realization that she's toying with him makes his heart give a huge thump, flooding him with adrenaline and making him jerk under her hands. He turns to see her, to see what face his death is wearing tonight, and blinks rapidly at the mask she has on.

Pale blonde hair, soulless eyes, features like a china doll. She smiles at him with perfectly painted red lips and says, "You reek of the Slayer, boy."

Riley flinches at the word, involuntary pain response and she laughs, a sound like nails on slate.

"Tell Darla all about it, child," she purrs into his ear as she slides her body along his, and the cold soaks through to his skin. "Tell me how the Slayer took your heart, used you up and spit you out, tossed you away when you became an inconvenience."

"What...how did you...who are you?" Riley stutters out his reply as she licks her way across his face, chill trail of saliva making him shiver again and then grow hot. She flips him over onto his back with a simple twist of her arm and he sprawls there, stunned.

Darla crawls over to him, lioness prowling to her prey and then straddles him. Riley's instincts are screaming at him to grab a stake, flip her off of him, kill her the way he had killed all those filthy hostiles in Belize. Dust her, let the glittering flakes fall over him like the slick blood of the demons had covered him in the heat of the green jungle.

But he can't move, he lays there and pants like a dog in heat while she mesmerizes him with her little hands and her blonde hair and her sharp sharp teeth. It was the essence of a hundred fevered dreams made corporeal, fragile and fatal and right here, slight weight of her pressing against his hips.

"Such a pretty, pretty boy," Darla sighs, a long finger reaching out to caress his cheekbone, the nail drawing a slim line of blood in its wake. She catches the ruby droplets on the tip of the same finger, brings it to her mouth and laps it off, kitten and cream. His breath catches when he sees her tasting him and he is suddenly hard and aching, and she knows. Knows how to slide herself just the tiniest bit along the length of him that presses against his now-too-tight jeans, just enough to make him quiver and sigh before he can contain it.

"Tell me, precious one...why are you watching Angel?" She lowers herself onto Riley's chest now and looks into his eyes. Smiling just the tiniest bit as she sees the pulse in his neck leap and throb, as she smells him radiate lust and fear and pain in one heady mix. Smells the Slayer, hated blonde bitch who has been her downfall, end of her life, end of her Angelus.

"Just watching," Riley chokes out. "Studying him."

"Like a rat in a maze," she says idly, not even interested in the answer. She has her reasons to play now, all she needs: the way the Slayer clings to his pores, the way his heart wrenches and twists when her name is mentioned. A way to hurt the one who has wronged her so grievously. Use the boy, kill the boy, turn the boy. The possibilities are endless.

And he is so willing, well muscled body sweating lightly and so hard, so aroused. She knows his kind and remembers a coven of them in Paris, pathetic mortals who attempt to touch immortality, who offer their blood to the vampires and take their pleasure from the danger. Les donneurs nécessaires...

She rips through his shirt as if it were made of tissue, sees the scars at once, neck and arms marked with his obsession. Runs cool fingers over them, shiny smooth and pale against skin toned by the sun's touch. Inhales in pleasure when he shudders and bucks against her, grabs her thighs and writhes up between them with a groan of need and want.

"Le beau mortel," she sighs. "L'assez joli enfant."

"I am *not* a child," he growls, delighting her with his unexpected knowledge. She allows him to pull her down, to thread his hands in her fine hair and kiss her with an eager mouth. Revels in his heat and raw need.

Riley's hands leave her hair and travel to the small of her back, pressing her against his aching cock. He's kissing her as he's never kissed another woman, with no thought for her pleasure, only his own. Knows this is a monster, that he's courting death. Doesn't care, doesn't care at all, thinks maybe this is how he is supposed to die after all. This is why he survived Belize - so he can be murdered by the very thing that ruined his life for him, crushed his vision of a normal life with her by his side. Buffy and babies and growing old together.

Just thinking about it causes a sob to well up in his chest, and he covers it with the sound of ripping cloth as he tears the silk dress from her shoulders. He presses her up further, raises his head and nuzzles into the marbled skin of her breasts. Captures a tiny pink nipple and suckles until she begins to wriggle her hips against him and he hears her making breathy sounds of pleasure. When he bites the turgid point with his teeth, harder than he would have ever done with anyone else, she squeals in shock and then clasps his head to her so that he can do it again. And again. And then attend to the other, already hard and waiting for the wet heat of his mouth.

She breaks away, stares at him as he gulps in deep breaths of air and watches her. Riley grabs her hand suddenly, takes her fingers and rakes them across his own chest, bright-hot arcs of pain sizzling into him as the skin tears and blood flows. Tugs her sharply forward, presses her face to the cuts he's made on his own body.

"Lick it up, drink it," he grinds out from clenched jaws, head falling back when she does it. Her tongue is soft and cool, exquisite pain as it dips into each furrow and sweeps the blood out. When she leans back again, the human mask is gone and the demon smiles at him in its true form.

Quick clever hands tug open the button on his jeans and slip the zipper down, freeing him and making him growl at her. Her fingers wrap around him, sliding in the slick fluid that marks his arousal. She teases him with a stroke of her thumb over the head of his cock, wraps her other hand in his hair and pulls it back sharply, exposing the column of his throat.

Darla lifts herself and shifts slightly, eases herself down onto him. He lets out a moan of pure lust when she settles over the shaft, when the cool tightness of her envelops him. She begins to rock against him, feels his hands gripping her hips, knows the bruises will fade within the hour. Her nipples brush against the heat of his torn chest, smears of his blood rubbing off, coloring the peaks a darker rose.

Riley's neck is beginning to ache from the angle she holds it, but he won't protest. His chest is on fire from the wounds he inflicted, the way she rubs against them. His cock throbs inside her, it's like being wrapped in silk, moist and cool, powerful muscles flexing around him in counter-rhythm to her rolling hips. She's purring deep in her chest, he can feel it vibrating against him whenever she leans into his chest. He wants her to feed from him, wants the fangs to pierce him, wants her to need him like the others needed him. Like he needs her.

Then she is licking his neck, thighs clenching his, making him gasp as she tightens every muscle around him. He's babbling then, can't stop himself from saying it out loud, chanting and praying and begging, "Do it, please, do it, bite, bite, drink, do it do it do it" until she's fucking him in rhythm to his words, thrusts and cadence in perfect harmony.

When Darla's teeth slide into the thick blue vein in Riley's neck, he comes with a breathless cry of "yesssss", his cock twitching endlessly as she sucks and licks and rides him to her own climax. He feels his semen running down his own dick, pooling in the dark honey curls at the base, feels himself growing faint as she continues to drink.

And suddenly she's done, she's not drinking from him, she's not riding him, she's not touching him. Riley is sprawled on the rooftop, shredded shirt bunched up painfully under his shoulder blades. The sky above him is dark and muddled and he doesn't know if it's because of the smog or the blood loss. Doesn't care.

When he catches his breath enough to roll to his side, she's sitting on the edge of the roof, watching the Hyperion. Her bare skin gleams in the night, and she looks like she covered in gems when the spots dance in his vision while he stares at her.

"What's your name?" she asks, the wind carrying her voice back to him.

He rolls onto his back, tucks himself into his pants and zips them up. "Does it matter?"

"Not really."

"I didn't think so." His heart is thudding, now fast, now slow, but he can't seem to muster up much concern about it. Sits up and pulls the remains of his shirt over his head and uses it to wipe at his neck and his chest. He's waiting for her to come over and snap his neck, would be glad of it right now. Grateful.

Riley closes his eyes and fixes a memory of Buffy in his thoughts. He visualizes every detail, every strand of hair, the exact green of her eyes, the way her mouth turns up on one side when she gets ready to smile. Wants that to be the last thought he ever has.

Darla watches him, head cocked to the side. She glances over at the hotel, sees Angel stalk out the front door, waits until he turns the corner. Then she walks over to Riley, caresses his soft hair with a gentle hand and waits for him to tense, or look at her and plead for his life. He does neither; she can hear the slow and steady beat of his heart.

"It's never that easy, dear child," she says to him, voice small and sad. "We never get the things we think we want until we don't want them anymore."

When Riley opens his eyes, he is alone on the roof.

=end=

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> _Les donneurs nécessaires _\- needful givers  
> _Le beau mortel _\- beautiful human  
> _L'assez joli enfant_ \- pretty pretty child


End file.
